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The unnamed narrator of this story is a recently unemployed surveyor from the Salem Custom-House. Some 200 years after the events of the novel have taken place, he discovers the record of Hester Prynne’s story in the building's attic and chooses to write a fictional treatment of the narrative. It is through the narrator’s point of view that we can appreciate just how deeply Puritan society is entrenched in shame and guilt. Our narrator descended from Puritan settlers, and like Hester, he both affirms and struggles against Puritan values. He wrestles with his desire to write, as he believes his Puritan ancestors would deem this career a “degenerate” and vain one. Nonetheless, he decides to pursue this writing project, as he’s invigorated by the challenge of crafting a meaningful and emotionally affecting story.
The narrator acts as a parallel figure to Hester. Both the narrator and Hester feel alienated in the communities they take part in. The narrator and Hester seek out the select group of people who will understand them, and it is to this kindred group that the narrator addresses his own story and the tale of the scarlet letter. The narrator ultimately devotes himself to telling Hester’s story as he finds a universality and philosophically rich quality to it that he can’t ignore.
